THE MELTING POT– It’s Now a Salad Bowl

by James R. Rogers
Clash Daily Contributor

America was once called the Melting Pot where many diverse people came to become part in the great nation of America. They came here with the desire to become Americans in a free and prosperous land. Many had the gleam of prosperity and riches in of their minds and some of them did achieve their dream. It wasn’t that they didn’t have the opportunity because America was and still is the land of opportunity.

Many famous figures passed through Ellis Island, many leaving their original names behind on their entry into the U.S. Israel Beilin–better known as composer Irving Berlin–arrived in 1893; Angelo Siciliano, who arrived in 1903, later achieved fame as the bodybuilder Charles Atlas. Lily Chaucoin arrived from France to New York in 1911 and found Hollywood stardom as Claudette Colbert. Some were already famous when they arrived, such as Carl Jung or Sigmund Freud (both 1909), and some, like Charles Chaplin (1912) would make their name in the New World.

But they had to face a twenty-seven and one half acre place called Ellis Island. Ellis Island opened in 1892 as a federal immigration station, and served that purpose for more than 60 years (it closed in 1954). Millions of newly arrived immigrants passed through the station during that time. It has been estimated that close to 40 percent of all current U.S. citizens can trace at least one of their ancestors to Ellis Island.

A great change was taking place in immigration to the United States. when Ellis Island opened. As arrivals from northern and western Europe–Germany, Ireland, Britain and the Scandinavian countries–slowed, more and more immigrants poured in from southern and eastern Europe. Among this new generation were Jews escaping from political and economic oppression in czarist Russia and eastern Europe (some 484,000 arrived in 1910 alone) and Italians escaping poverty in their country. There were also Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Serbs, Slovaks and Greeks, along with non-Europeans from Syria, Turkey and Armenia. The reasons for leaving their homes in the Old World included war, drought, famine and religious persecution. All had hopes for greater opportunity in the New World.

Text of the Oath of Citizenship they were required to swear to was established only in the form of an administrative regulation promulgated by the executive branch. However, under the Administrative Procedure Act, CIS could theoretically change the text of the oath at any time, so long as the new text reasonably meets the “five principles” mandated by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1953. These principles are:

— allegiance to the United States Constitution,
— renunciation of allegiance to any foreign country to which the immigrant has had previous allegiances
— defense of the Constitution against enemies “foreign and domestic”
— promise to serve in the United States Armed Forces when required by law (either combat or non-combat)
— promise to perform civilian duties of “national importance” when required by law

The Melting Pot has now become a salad bowl of hyphenated Americans who cling to their ancestral lands and customs. They have become enchanted with the “Free Lunch” mentality of our social welfare system.

Social programs in the United States are welfare subsidies designed to aid the needs of the U.S. population. Proposals for federal programs began with Theodore Roosevelt’s New Nationalism and expanded with Woodrow Wilson’s New Freedom, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier, and Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society.

The programs vary in eligibility requirements and are provided by various organizations on a federal, state, local and private level. They help to provide food, shelter, education, healthcare and money to U.S. citizens through primary and secondary education, subsidies of college education, unemployment disability insurance, subsidies for eligible low-wage workers, subsidies for housing, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, pensions for eligible persons and health insurance programs that cover public employees. The Social Security system is the largest and most prominent social aid program. Medicare is another prominent program.

In addition to government expenditures, private welfare spending in the United States is thought to be about 10% of the U.S. GDP or another $1.6 trillion.

These programs originally designed to help people pull themselves up by their boot straps, so to speak, have failed miserably. They have made many people solely dependent on government handouts for their very lively hood.

Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th and youngest president of the United States made the following statement:

In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin.

But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American. If he tries to separate from the rest of America, then he isn’t doing his part as an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all.

We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile.

We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns out people as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot. boarding house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.

—from a January 3, 1919, letter to the President of the American Defense Society, in Theodore Roosevelt and His Time Shown in His Own Letters, Vol. II (edited by Joseph Bucklin Bishop; published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1920)

We don’t see this happening any more. Very sad.

Image: http://virtualbreath.net/curious/2008/10/05/salad-bowl-vs-melting-pot/

James Rogers is retired from 37 years of Newspaper/printing and publishing and has written and edited a lot of copy during those decades. He currently blogs and writes short stories for his entertainment and to keep his mind sharp.